Re: Cost of Open Access Journals: Other Observations

[jcg <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Is it that the library community "somehow don't want to test this option
in any rigorous way" or is it that the library community sees itself as an
integral part of the economic equation of OA publishing, however fuzzy it
may be at this stage of history. When librarians say that they want to
help, don't they mean helping to set up a new economic model where their
role is gradually being defined. When librarians say they want to help,
don't they hope to become publishing partners in some sense, or at least
active stakeholders in the publishing process, rather than mere customers
dealing with the procurement of literature?

The phrasing used by Ann is interesting in yet another way : she expresses
herself as if there were some sort of unconscious ("somehow") resistance
to a rigorous test on the part of the library community. The inference
seems to be that this resistance has a cause and the cause might be the
fear of failure.  In short, the library community, without realizing it,
might be trying to manipulate the results of an economic experiment in
order to obtain the favoured results. Quite an inference, and a sly one
too, IMHO!

[[WHOA FROM ANN:  Reminding readers that mine was a report on statements
made by editors in a meeting -- NOT be be misread as espousing a view, let
alone a sly one. To repeat:  "Note herein I'm not saying that librarians
should or shouldn't have made these offers, but now reporting a discussion
at a recent meeting of STM journal editors."]]

I do not think anyone is approaching this whole question as if it were a
lab experiment with rigorous lab-like experimental conditions; rather, it
appears to me that it is approached, consciously or not, as any historical
process which muddles along with nudges, adjustment, as well as
accompanying discourses of all kinds that try to help or impede the
development of something which, for better or for worse, is now frequently
referred to as a "movement". Lab experiments extract artificial subsets
from reality better to understand reality and face it anew later (the
so-called "applied" phase of science); historical processes do not enjoy
this luxury: they live and test reality all at once. This is what deeply
distinguishes science from politics (which is not to say that politics is
devoid of rational dimensions).

Best,

Jean-Claude Gu�don

On Thu May 27 2004 10:09 pm, Ann Okerson wrote:
> Fytton:  Your message makes sense; I too believe(d)  that the OA journals
> charging publication fees were established, (at least partly) in order to
> test the viability of author-pays, rather than reader-pays, for a variety
> of interesting reasons.  But last weekend, when participating on an OA
> panel at a society conference and making a similar point to yours, I heard
> from one of the highly visible OA publishers that the reason they created
> library membership fees was that a number of libraries had approached
> *them* (the publishers) and said they wanted to help -- and asked how they
> could support these journals/publishers financially, could they pay
> something?  From this response, which has also been mentioned in other
> fora, it would appear that we in the library community somehow don't want
> to test this option in any rigorous way -- or at least we are not
> advancing that experiment.
>
> (Note herein I'm not saying that librarians should or shouldn't have made
> these offers, but now reporting a discussion at a recent meeting of STM
> journal editors.)  Ann Okerson/Yale Library